


An equal and opposite force

by AMLark



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben Solo Lives, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Dark Reylo, Dark Side Rey, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Jedi Ben Solo, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Redeemed Ben Solo, Seduction to the Dark Side, Sith Empire, Sith Training, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:33:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21929776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMLark/pseuds/AMLark
Summary: Rey kills palpatine and becomes Sith Empress in order to save her friends, while redeemed Ben Solo is suddenly the light side of their force dyad. In order to restore balance to the universe they both sacrifice parts of themselves, and in a world of light and dark must find the grey.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 7
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is more of a prologue, which sets up where the canon divergence begins. I wrote this in a fugue state after seeing TROS, so forgive any typos. Will update probably obsessively for the next week or two, then more sporadically after that! As always, love any and all comments

Her first step was at the shore. When she found BB8 on Jakku she had no way to know that the ice would only thin the farther she went, the more steps she left between her and land. One doesn't know where a lake stops and the surface begins in winter, and when she found the droid she had only thought of the rations she would trade him for. Not of the ice thinning beneath her feet. Not that she would find herself, here in the middle of a lake as spring was approaching. That the ice she had stepped onto would crack beneath her feet. 

Her boots were made for sand, not snow. 

She could kill this man, this _thing_. The skin and bones that had once been Palpatine stood before her, the crowd of sith cheering so loudly behind her that she could feel her heartbeat slowing, meeting the pace of their chants. Exigal was a strange dip in the force, a well of gravity that would be easy to fall into. Rey would sacrifice herself. She had known the cost could be her life, but she hadn't expected that she would have to live with that choice. 

She felt ben fighting to join her. But his presence in the force, which had once felt like this planet--a well, a cave, the depths of the lake beneath the ice she had unwittingly walked onto-- felt parallel to hers. In the middle of the force, two sides of a scale that were perfectly and precariously balanced. He had told her himself that they were a dyad. He assumed that meant they were meant to be together in the force, on the same side. 

She knew the truth. 

Scales could not lean to one side, they were attached, each one a part of the other. It was no mistake that she had seen a vision of herself in darkness only once Kylo had dropped his responsibilities like his dark cape. There was no future where they both lived in the light, and he had spent so long in the dark. Rey would not lose him to it again. 

He was fighting the Knights of Ren. But he was not Han, for Han would've known it is always better to avoid a fight than bring a blaster to a saber fight. Their bond was growing, and she only needed one of the skywalker sabers for what she was about to do. 

She handed him Leia's. 

She felt his fingers for a moment, against hers, before they moved to toggle on the emitter. She let her hand linger for a moment, and she felt the smoothness of his fingertips, so long protected by gloves. His mind brushed against hers. 

"Hold on," he whispered. 

She slammed the bond shut between them, and drove Luke's saber into Palpatines chest. 

***

He was drowning. 

The waters were familiar, ones he had breathed as easily as air up until a few hours before. The darkness rose around him like a tide, and all he could do was swim for the receding light at it's surface. 

She had sacrificed herself.

The thought was all his mind could focus on, even as he carved through the remaining Knights of Ren with ease, now that his mother's saber was in his hand. She had embraced the dark side to keep him from it, and he would be damned if he didn't live in the light for what she did. 

But he couldn't go to her now. Not in a hall filled with sith acolytes, not on Exegol. This was the home of the dark side of the force, a planet forged from that side of power, a planet where it's new Empress had just been crowned. 

Ben needed to escape. 

He ran, away from her, instead of towards her as he had for these past few months. A chase turned on its head, and he felt the guilt that he knew he could never atone for, that he had hunted her from curiousity then fear and then desire. The shame that ate at his stomach knowing that her fear would be worse than this, knowing that he had been a stranger. 

He ran from that too. 

Above the battle paused, the world hung suspended. Palpatine's lightning had dissipated, but the gravity felt off. Ben's hair hung about his head as though he were underwater, and his steps propeled him further than they should have, even with manipulations of the force. Blaster fire stopped between ships, not the frantic kinetic energy of his force use on blasters on Jakku, but the complete stillness of a bug trapped in amber. 

Their bond _sizzled_ , feeling as real as diving beneath an icy wave, but only one word came through. 

"Run." 

The falcon swept low, Chewy in the cockpit, the only movement among the frozen battle above. 

"Ben," crackled a voice over the comm at his wrist. He didn't slow, but continued to sprint out of the depths of Exegol, the statues of sith lords long since passed throwing shadows behind him. 

"Lando?" He slowed, and the falcon did as well, the ramp lowering even as the ship did not make a complete stop. He felt rather than saw the shift behind him. Rey's ascension had paused the entire galaxy, but even that could not be kept still for long. Blaster fire was picking up speed ahead. Ships were turning as their engines shifted the direction of their power. Ben leapt, and the falcon's ramp echoed beneath his feet.

He didn't have time to think of this moment, of his fathers ghost on the stormy wing of the corpse of the second Death Star. Of Kylo Ren running away from this ship, this legacy. He could only brace himself for the fight that was about to come, for the condemnation of those who his father had trusted the most. 

Instead all he heard was a wookie cry of sadness, and soft voice that came from neither of the Falcon's two other passengers, that simply said _"Welcome home."_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey crafts a new saber, Kylo wrestles with his past, per usual.

He stared at the Dejarik table. 

A game had been left mid-play, the holographs shifting with apprehension as they awaited absent players moves. Ben could guess that Chewie had been winning by a landslide. He could almost see a younger version of himself, small and dark to Han's golden tones, as his father would lean over and whispered _"How do you beat a cheater?"_

Young Ben had just started at his Uncle's Jedi temple, and he knew the correct answer would be to say something abstract and detached, the kind of statement that could be argued as both right and wrong, and therefore was neither. 

He hadn't wanted to be a Jedi. He wanted to be Han. 

_"You cheat better."_

Han had given him that smile, the one that said he loved Ben, but was still disappointed when they thought differently. _"No, son. You don't play."_

But this was not his father's ship, had not been for many years. There were the marks of many lives here, patches where there had been none before, new paneling in the hall. His father's general pins had not been irreverently pinned to an outdated dart board, his mothers gowns were not peaking out of the drawers that Han was always muttering about her not shutting all the way. 

It was not like coming home. 

"My boy," Lando said, rounding the corner. The blue streaks of hyperspace painted his face, almost enough to hide the wrinkles and sprouting greys that had taken up residence. He wondered, if they could go back, if any of them would be surprised that Lando would be the last of their crew alive. If his mother would scoff and say she was bound to outlive them all. If Han would have said he couldn't believe how long he did make it. 

He was the only one left. 

"Lando," Ben said, and his voice cracked, just a little. The man who had been practically an uncle wrapped him in his arms, and though Ben was far taller he found his face pressed into his shoulder. A deep breath shaking through his chest. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." 

"I would say they forgave you," he said, pulling back. "But there was nothing to forgive. You cannot blame a victim, and not when they are groomed so young. Your parents greatest fear was that they failed you Ben, and though I tolerated luke, I loved Han and Leia--" Lando met Ben's eyes, "they did. You were a child, and they were too wrapped up in the Galaxy to protect you. You didn't fail them Ben, they failed you." 

He nods, but it doesn't feel like that to him. He couldn't keep the voices from his head, but he didn't have to listen. 

"I can see you are still blaming yourself, still thinking that what was done to you you did to yourself. And you may feel like you need to be forgiven, but you need to forgive them first. Only then will you be able to forgive yourself." 

Lando stepped back. “In the meantime, we need to know what happened.” 

***

She was drowning. 

The ice had cracked, she had taken the plunge. And at first it was shocking, but it felt like a relief, like she had spent these last few months--maybe since she met her reflection, in the darkness where the Jedi once were born-- watching the ice grow more transparent beneath her feet, hearing the creak of fissures running beneath each step. 

The worst had happened, and she had walked through it. 

The fleet had been damaged with her ascendance, in her last effort for light, to pause the battle long enough for the falcon to escape, and for the resistance to retreat her pull on the force had shattered their hulls. Ripped apart their bridges, left their guns to self implode. 

She supposed she was sorry. 

But there was no room for sorry, for regret on this side of the force. There was no contemplation, no meditation. There was action. There were decisions. There were answers. 

Answers she had chased for so long. 

And there was Ben. She realized, why he had been so attuned to her, before she had known of him. Those in the sun did not search for the night, but in the dark one always was waiting for dawn. 

She was a creature of darkness. Of At-at hulls, of the black space between systems. Of the fringe world of hyperspace, where all realities blurred by in the glue glow of speed. 

She was Sith. 

Rey’s musings pulled her deeper as she continued to work on her new saber. She had been toiling over it for over a day, placing the kyber. Adjusting the grip. It was unbalanced, a weapons of exacting force. Only she would be able to wield it, through so long with her quarterstaff. She had seen it in a vision, once. She was crafting it from memory, a memory of something that had never been, or maybe it always had existed, and the saber was just waiting for her to pick it up. 

She did. 

The two red beams spurted to life, flickering. An ode to the boy she’d sacrificed herself for, and a vow. She had not defeated Kylo Ren, not really. They had reached stalemates only because he’d refused to end her, to best her. She wanted to remember his crossguard every time she ignited her quarterstaff, a reminder of what she was trying to beat. What she would do anything to keep on the side of light, even if it meant sacrificing herself to the dark. 

She swung it in an arc, her small audience standing at attention as the red glow passed over their facades. Most of the sith who watched her ascendance were apparitions, the dark opposite of a force ghost. Now she gathered those living around her, pulling close the Siths that she could find who had not been aligned with Palpatine. 

These, unfortunately, were the Knights of Ren. 

“Remove the masks.” She said, twirling the saber so it was double bladed. 

They did not move. 

“That was an order.” 

“Your highness--” 

She didn’t even lift a finger, his voice choked in his throat. She could have crushed his windpipe, could have crushed him into the ground. But she found that this movement was more threatening, more evidence of her control. She did not want to reveal the extent of her powers just yet. 

“I see no royalty here. I have given myself no title.” 

She kept her grip on his throat for a second longer before dropping it. Another knight, one braver, or maybe just unwilling to wait, removed the mask. Her hair was combed into a single high braid, that tumbled down her cloak. Her skin was pale from too long beneath metal, but dark. “What are our orders, master?” 

Rey liked her. 

“I want to see your faces. Always. If you choose to wear the mask outside my presence, I cannot stop you.”   
She wasn’t sure how they reacted to this. She didn’t care. Their minds were flickers in the force, easily blocked out or brightened. They had spent too long under poor tutelage, focusing on the easy pillars of hte dark side of the force. On rage and selfishness. There was more to sith than that, there was desire, and indulgence. There was anger, but also there was the withholding of it, the simmering of hatred without slipping into rage. 

This could not be taught. 

Rey knew that her limits as a Sith were not Kylos. If he was a lake, she was an ocean. She had true pain in her past, counted nights beneath the dark jakku side, months of hunger, the counting of rations. She had Unkar Plutt who owned her, Luke Skywalker who abandoned her, Leia who relied on her to save the son she had condemned herself. Rey’s pain was not the shallow insecurities Palpatine had relied on to win Ben to the dark side. No hers was a real trauma, a nightmare that she had lived for. It was what Sith were made of. A pain that had no end. 

“Find me others.” She reached out then, and pushed the darkness against the knights of ren. They responded in various degrees, with the one who spoke out of turn ripping off his helmet to reveal golden hair before vomiting beside him. The female withe the braid shuddered, but she stood the tallest. “Find those that have felt the pain I’ve felt, that know the darkness that is necessary for survival.” 

They saluted. 

“They are the ones who will know the new order of Sith.” 

She knew that one could not lead by blind orders, not when relying on those who would be out of sight by necessity. 

***

He told them.

Chewie remained in the cockpit, still unable to come meet Ben. He didn’t blame the wookie, he wasn’t sure if he could look directly at him either. 

“The resistance?” Lando asked. 

“She did it to save them. I heard it. But who knows what will happen once the Sith have poured into her. How much of herself she will have left.” 

They sat in silence. The falcon would have been too much, but he had calmed his racing heart. He could see now what the absences before had hidden from him: A dried flower pressed between panels, a tool for a speeder filed down and carefully used to repair the life support. A small scratch on the paneling, next to another, and another. Not a wall of marks, but a few days counted. 

They felt small and sad compared to the marks he had seen on Jakku. So much loneliness, for what? A week of happiness, or family? Two? 

_Rey_

He sent her name out, a plea. The bond shivered. He had one glimpse, of a hood pulled over her head. Her face was cast in pale red light. Then she disappeared. 

_Please_

This time it was even less. A feeling, like someone was looking over their shoulder at him. He paced. Was this worth it? If he did not have to atone for his parents, would he ever be done atoning for this? Was his redemption worth her fall? 

No. 

He would trade, the rage, the loneliness. The guilt. He would take it all back to have her in the light again, if it meant that she would be whole. 

But that was not how this worked. They were not meant to be togeher, on one side or the other. The Sith were evil, but hte Jedi were _wrong_. Neither side could exist without the other. 

Only one question remained. 

What was in the middle? 

“Set a course for Naboo.”


End file.
